CONNECTING TilE NIAD RIVER VALLEY
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CONNECTING: THE
TELEPHONE IN THE
MAD RIVER VALLEY
By ANN E. COOPER
AJexander Graham Bell invented the
telephone in 1876. The first call ever made was
to his assistant, who was in the next room. "Mr.
Watson, come here. I want you," Bell said.
Before many years passed, people wanted
phones in their homes and businesses. Many of
them made their own. And, to be able to connect to other phones, some people started their
own phone comp;lIlies.
Eleanor Haskin is the President of the
Waitsfield-Faysron Telecommunications Company. She tells about some
of these private companies.
"There was one in
Franklin," she says. "[It]
was formed because the
man who was filling the
grain [carsJ wanted to know
when the train [had] arrived
at the siding.... If it was late,
he didn't want to go down
Eleanor ForI' Haskin and wait."
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"There was one town in Vermont, " she
continues, "where a doctor put in a phone
system so that he could stay in touch with his
patients and not have to go out in the mud and
wind and snow and ice to see [them]."
In 1904, about 20 people got together in
the Mad River Valley and formed the Waitsfield-Fayston Telephone Company. Their first
telephone book listed 30 customers. But the
phone company grew fast. Soon there were
lines to Roxbury, Middlesex, Warren, and
Moretown.
Eleanor Haskin grew up with the phone
company. Her father, Elton Farr, ran the company until his death in 1940. Then her mother
took over. Mrs. Farr was one of the few women
J'
_
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.//fOIl Fa17; President and Manager of Waitsfteld-Faystoll Ti:/epbolle
Cowpany, /lsed II 11/0f01'(yc/e to get to "tTollble mils. "
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CONNECTING TIlE MAD RIVER VALLEY
CONNECTING THE MAD RIVER VALLEY
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Before the telephone, when there was no
radio or television either, it was hard for people
to get news or important information quickly.
The phone changed all that.
But phone service was not the kind we are
used to now. You couldn't just pick up the
phone and dial. All calls had to go thtough an
operator. The operators had a switchboard with
a hole for each telephone line and plugs and
wires to connect them. \iVhen a call came in,
the operator had to plug the right wire into the
right hole. If there were a lot of calls at once,
the operator was pretty busy.
There was no such thing as a dial tone back
then. There were no dials. Phones hung on the
wall. They had a crank on the side. Alden
EUllice Fnrl; mothl'r ol EklllllJr Ilnskill, bcmwe UllIIltIgn'
ofthe compnl1Y nfter her hwlJIIlld died. She ,VIIS liS good lit
trouble-shootillg liS she ,VIIS lit keeping the books lind
1"I/I111ing the switfbbOllrtl.
executives at that time. The company is now
run by Mrs. Haskin and her children. Its lines
reach far beyond the Mad River Valley, into the
rest of the world.
In the 1910s and 1920s, me Farts knew just
about everyone in Waitsfield. Those who did
not have enough money to pay for phone
service "would trade service for products." Mrs.
Haskin says that her father "would get wood
ashes for his garden, maple syrup, eggs, chickens, half a pig, anything that would pay the
bill."
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EIiUlbcth Long filld Mm'guerite Morifl1ty nllswn'Cd mils
011 the switchbofl1'd at tbe old mellt market ill l¥aitsjield.
Notice the wins coming tbrollgh tbe windQW.
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Bettis' wife worked as a telephone operator in
\V.'litsfield. As he tells it, to make a call, " ...you
step up there and t;lke the receiver off and wind
that old crank[. Alnd then the operator would
come on and you tell her what number you
want and she'd plug in that switch...... And then
the phone would ring at the other end.
Because all calls had to go through the
switchboard, and because the office was in the
middle of town, the operators knew a lot about
what was going on. Mrs. Haskin remembers
that "if anyone called for the doctor, the operator more than likely would know [where he
was]_ So she'd say, 'I just saw the docror go off
toward ~10retown.'"
The phone company, through the operator,
really provided a public service. Because she
could connect many lines at once, the operaror
was able to get help in emergencies. If there
was a fire, she would call all the volunteer
firemen. There was a coded ring for fires.
When they heard it, the volunteers would run
to the phone. Alden Bettis remembers, ".. .she'd
put in a whole bunch of those plugs and then
she'd ring,...three short rings three times. And
then she'd come on the phone and tell where
the fire was and everybody would rake off and
go and help fight the fire."
People also got notice by phone of events
raking place in town. "If it was a notice, lthe
code] was two shorr rings," Eleanor Haskin
recalls.
It is only recently that there have been
private telephone lines. Ll the beginning, many
households shared what was called a parry line.
j
-
ElIl1ice Farr and bi'r repair trllck get ready to wake
tll/otber service (((II along tbe Valley's wuddy roads i71 tbe
J940,.
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Some party lines had 1110re than 20 households
on them. Each household had its own special
ring. so people could tell whether a caU was for
them or for someone else.
'With so many people on a line. it was not
always easy to get a call. or to make one. If
someone else was on the phone, you would
have to wait until they were finished. Then
you had to hope you would get to the phone
before someone else picked it up.
Party lines made it possible to listen in on
other people's conversations. And many people
did. The operator wasn't the only person who
knew what was going on in town! Ed Eurich
remembers "you'd always hear click, click. click
[when you were on the phoneJ...Different
people...were picking up the receiver, just to
see what was going on."
"Stella Boise in orth Fayston became very
famous." says Mrs. Haskin. "She sat in her
chair next to ... a clock. And so any time that
Stella was listening•... people would say. 'Good
morning, Steib,' because they could hear her
clock ticking."
One day, Ed Eurich tells, Cbrence Strong
wanted to use the phone. When he picked up
the receiver, "there were two ladies talking.
And one ofthem said she just made these
cookies and put them in her oven....He went
about his work and he came back, ten minutes
or so later, and they were still on talking. So he
went back to work. ...And came back and they
were still on the phone. Well, he got pretty
well upset....And he finally...went to the phone
and snuffed a little....And then he says, 'I smell
something burning.' And this lady says, 'Oh my
land, my cookies may be burning~'"
Rupert Blair remembers Mrs. Lovett. She
"had quite a nose for news....She would sit up
there and every time the telephone rang, she
would get the news.... Party line,... [it was] a live
version of your soaps."
In 1961, when there were still only 32;
customers, the Waitsfield-Fayston Company
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changed over to dial phones and single lines.
The reason, Mrs. Haskin says, was the growth
of the Sugarbush ski area. Skiing was becoming
a popular sport. To take care of its business and
its customers, the resort needed to have its own
private lines.
The rest of the state took a bit longer to
swirch. As late as 1979, <he,. were 35,000 party
lines in the state. In J 994, there were still more
than 8,000. Today there are fewer than 40.
Times have changed since the beginnings of
the telephone. This is an age of instant and
constant communication. We get news in
minutes from all over the world, through radio
and television, and the newest phone-connected service, the internet. We can call people
all over the world in seconds. We have extension phones, touch-tone phones, car phones,
cordless phones, cellular and digital phones.
'Ve take all this for granted. But once, nOt
<har long ago, <he idea and <he reality of
phones were new, as were things like electric
power, radio, the automobile. The telephone
changed the way we keep in touch and do
business. It is hard now to imagine both that
newness and what it was like before the phone
became a part of everyday life. And it is hard to
imagine life now without it.
Rooting Around
You might want to make a list of the number
of times you use the phone in a day, and the
reasons for those calls. What would you have
done if there were no phones? How did people
stay in touch and do business in earlier times?
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The material for this article was taken from
interviews conducted by the Vermont Folklife
Center, located in the Gamaliel Painter House
on Court Street in Middlebury. These formed
the basis for a radio program that was broadcast on Vermont Public Radio in the summer of
1998. You can read more about the
telephone in the Mad River Valley in Volume 4
of the Folklife Center's magazine, Visit'n:
....--..
Conversations with Vermonters.
For more information about Visit'n and the
Folklife Center itself, call 802-388-4964.
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